Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Informática; The paradigm of Aspect-Oriented Programming is currently being studied and matured. Many aspectoriented languages have been proposed, including Object Teams for Java (OT/J). However, to date few studies were carried out to assess the contribution of the various languages available and compare
their relative advantages and disadvantages. The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to fill this gap.
In the past, implementations of design patterns in Java and AspectJ were successfully used as case studies to derive conclusions on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the language under
consideration. This dissertation follows this approach, with the development of a suitable collection of examples based on the well-known Gang-of-Four design patterns.
Two repositories of implementations in OT/J of the complete collection of 23 Gang-of-Four design patterns have been developed, to be used as a basis for subsequent analysis. The scenarios used for the examples are based on Java repositories by independent authors, freely available on the Web.
Based on the repositories developed, an analysis of the modularizations obtained with OT/J is presented and compared with the results obtained using Java and AspectJ.
OT/J provides direct language support for 3 of the patterns. 20 patterns yielded separate modules for the patterns...

Energy balance-related behavioral patterns find their origin in early childhood. The current paper provides an overview of studies that have examined such behavioral patterns, i.e., the clustering of dietary behaviors, physical activity, and/or sedentary behavior. The paper discusses the importance of examining energy balance-related behavioral patterns in children, outlines methods to examine these patterns, and provides examples of patterns that have been found (e.g., the universal sedentary-snacking and healthy intake patterns, as well as more unique or local patterns), child and parental characteristics predicting such patterns (e.g., child gender and maternal educational level), and the relationship of these patterns with overweight and related measures.

In the development of critical systems it is common practise to make use of redundancy
in order to achieve higher levels of reliability. There are well established design patterns
that introduce redundancy and that are widely documented in the literature and adopted
by the industry. However there have been few attempts to formally verify them with
respect to behavioural preservation.
In this work, we purpose an approach to specify such design patterns, called here
fault tolerant patterns, using HOL. We use the theorem prover HOL4 to prove the compositionality
and correctness of the fault tolerant patterns. We illustrate our approach
by modelling three classical fault tolerant patterns: homogeneous redundancy, heterogeneous
redundancy and triple modular redundancy. Our model takes into account that the
original system (without redundancy) computes a certain function with some delay and is
amenable to random failures.
In order to prove that a fault tolerant pattern preserves the behaviour of its subsystems,
we defined new notions of refinement. Systems engineers commonly accept the fact that
fault tolerant patterns do not change the functionality of a system. However, this practise
is not compatible with the classical refinement notions. Thus we defined axiomatic
notions of refinement to prove that the formalised fault tolerant patterns preserve the
behaviour of its subsystems.
We also proved that our fault tolerant patterns are compositional in the sense that
we can apply fault tolerant patterns consecutively and for an arbitrary number of times.
The result of that is still a system whose delay...

One of the oldest and best known global biological patterns in ecology is the latitudinal gradient of richness, characterized by a decrease in the number of species from Equator toward the poles. Several hypotheses, even today, attempt to explain the variation that occurs in the pattern of diversity of many animal and plants. Despite the advances that have been followed in Biogeography and Macroecology in recent decades, studies on biodiversity at a global scale have yet targeted mainly terrestrial and marine groups. This study presented three main objectives, first, to create a representative database of continental zooplankton diversity at global scale, that could demonstrate the distribution of richness patterns for their major groups (Total Zooplankton, Microcrustacea, Copepoda, Cladocera, Rotifera); second, to analyze the adequacy of global richness data to the Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE); and third, to establish the balance between local and regional components which determined the observed gradients. In this research, data collection was made from scientific papers concerning the diversity of continental zooplankton around the world. The sampling methodology effect on richness data was controlled through regressions, whose residuals were assumed as being the corrected richness. Latitudinal patterns analyses were performed with the corrected richness...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) have previously shown that dietary patterns are observable by 3 years. However, it is not clear when dietary patterns emerge. We aimed to describe dietary patterns in early life and their associations with maternal and infant sociodemographic characteristics. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Principal component analysis was applied to diet questionnaires of ALSPAC participants at 6 months (n¼7052) and 15 months (n¼5610) to extract dietary patterns. The sociodemographic factors associated with dietary patterns were investigated using regression analyses. RESULTS: Four dietary patterns were extracted at both 6 and 15 months. A traditional-style pattern characterized by home-prepared meats, vegetables and desserts, a second pattern characterized by ready-prepared baby foods and a third pattern characterized by discretionary foods such as biscuits, sweets and crisps were identified at both ages. At 6 months, the fourth pattern was characterized predominantly by breastfeeding and at 15 months, by contemporary-style foods including herbs, legumes, nuts, raw fruit and vegetables. Higher maternal age and education, number of siblings and lower body mass index (BMI) was associated with higher scores on the breastfeeding or meat...

Diet supplies the nutrients needed for the development of neural tissues that occurs over the first 2 years of life. Our aim was to examine associations between dietary patterns at 6, 15 and 24 months and intelligence quotient (IQ) scores at 8 years. Participants were enrolled in an observational birth cohort (ALSPAC study, n = 7,097). Dietary data was collected by questionnaire and patterns were extracted at each time using principal component analysis. IQ was measured using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children at 8 years. Associations between dietary patterns and IQ were examined in regression analyses adjusted for potential confounding and by propensity score matching, with data imputation for missing values. At all ages, higher scores on a Discretionary pattern (characterized by biscuits, chocolate, sweets, soda, crisps) were associated with 1–2 point lower IQ. A Breastfeeding pattern at 6 months and Home-made contemporary patterns at 15 and 24 months (herbs, legumes, cheese, raw fruit and vegetables) were associated with 1-to-2 point higher IQ. A Home-made traditional pattern (meat, cooked vegetables, desserts) at 6 months was positively associated with higher IQ scores, but there was no association with similar patterns at 15 or 24 months. Negative associations were found with patterns characterized by Ready-prepared baby foods at 6 and 15 months and positive associations with a Ready-to-eat foods pattern at 24 months. Propensity score analyses were consistent with regression analyses. This study suggests that dietary patterns from 6 to 24 months may have a small but persistent effect on IQ at 8 years.; Lisa G. Smithers...

Dietary patterns derived from factor analytic procedures have been demonstrated to predict demographic and health outcomes across a wide range of populations. To examine the potential utility of long-term dietary recall, in the present study, we examined associations between dietary patterns from across the lifespan and demographic and later-life cardiovascular-related health variables, using the Lifetime Diet Questionnaire (LDQ). The LDQ is a self-administered, non-quantitative, retrospective FFQ designed to assess dietary intake from childhood to older age. Participants (n 352) from the Older People, Omega-3 and Cognitive Health trial, aged 65–91 years, completed the LDQ. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the LDQ and plausible dietary patterns were derived. As a result, three patterns were extracted from each life period, with five distinct patterns overall; these were ‘traditional Australian’ and ‘non-traditional Australian’, ‘high-sugar and high-fat’, ‘vegetable’ and ‘fruit and vegetable’ patterns. In separate adjusted regression models, age, sex, education, income, parental background and childhood physical activity all significantly predicted dietary patterns across the lifespan. A ‘traditional Australian’ pattern in childhood predicted higher HDL-cholesterol levels and lower odds of cholesterol medication use; lower HDL-cholesterol levels were predicted by the adult ‘processed...

Indexación: Scielo; The aim was to find craniofacial morphology patterns in a multivariate cephalometric database using a clustering technique. Cephalometric analysis was performed in a sample of 100 teleradiographs collected from Chilean orthodontic patients. Thirty cephalometric measurements were taken from commonly used analysis. The computed variables were used to perform a clustering analysis with the k-means algorithm to identify patterns of craniofacial morphology. The J48 decision tree was used to analyze each cluster, and the ANOVA test to determine the statistical differences between the clusters. Four clusters were found that had significant differences (P<0.001) in 24 of the 30 variables studied, suggesting that they represent different patterns of craniofacial form. Using the decision tree, 8 of the 30 variables appeared to be relevant for describing the clusters. The clustering analysis is effective in identifying different craniofacial patterns based on a multivariate database. The distinct clusters appear to be caused by differences in the compensation process of the facial structure responding to a genetically determined cranial and mandible form. The proposed method can be applied to several databases, creating specific classifications for each one of them.
KEY WORDS: Craniofacial patterns; Morphological patterns; Clustering technique; Orthodontics.
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RESUMEN: El objetivo fue encontrar patrones morfológicos craneofaciales...

The influence of regional processes, such as dispersal, on ecological communities has been the focal point of considerable ecological research. Evidence has shown that dispersal can impact community composition through interactions with predation, the introduction of keystone species, and maintenance of species lost due to competitive exclusion. Ecological communities can be characterized by several metrics including species richness, diversity, evenness, abundance and species co-occurrence patterns. Negative species co-occurrence patterns have historically been attributed to competitive interactions between species causing pairs of species to never co-occur. However, little attention has been paid to the contribution of dispersal on species co-occurrence patterns. I have experimentally investigated the influence of dispersal on species co-occurrence patterns in addition to local species richness, total species abundance, evenness, and Simpson’s diversity.
Local species richness significantly increased with dispersal, with variation in total local richness being mainly attributed to differences in the rotifer community. Local diversity, total abundance, and evenness were not significantly influenced by changes in the level of dispersal. Species co-occurrence patterns were greatly affected by changes in dispersal...

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2015.1096118; This article reviews existing literature on spatial metrics, presenting a portfolio of metrics addressing the spatial patterns of growing and shrinking cities and discussing their potential and limitations. A wide and diverse set of spatial metrics was found. While these metrics address most of the identified spatial patterns of urban growth, spatial metrics used in urban shrinkage studies are much scarcer and not nearly sufficient to provide a comprehensive assessment of its spatial patterns. The article concludes that there is great potential for the development of new spatial metrics or mixed indicators, particularly in shrinkage contexts. The article builds on recent literature focusing on reviewing and developing metrics for particular spatial patterns (notably patterns of urban sprawl), while considering a very broad and multidisciplinary set of metrics. It focuses not only on the outcomes of urban growth but also on those of the increasingly common shrinking phenomenon.; This research was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/71970/2010), co-financed by the European Social Fund through the POPH Programme.

Spatial ecological patterns are usually ascribed to Turingtype reaction-diffusion or scale-dependent feedback processes, but morphologically indistinguishable patterns can be produced by instabilities in fluid flow. We present a new hypothesis that suggests that fluid convection and chill damage to plants could form vegetation patterns with wavelengths ≈1–2 times the plant height. Previous hypotheses for small-scale vegetation pattern formation relied on a Turing process driven by competition for water, which is thought to occur in large vegetation patterns. Predictions of the new hypothesis
were consistent with properties of natural grass patterns in North Carolina, contradicting the Turing hypothesis. These results indicate that similarities in pattern morphology should not be interpreted as implying similarities in the pattern-forming processes, that small-wavelength vegetation patterns may arise from mechanisms that are distinct from those generating long-wavelength vegetation patterns, and that fluid instabilities should be recognized as a cause of ecological patterns.